


Hopes and Dreams (which aren't a good thing)

by CelestiaTrollworth



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Bar Room Brawl, Gen, Obnoxious Starship Captains, Silly Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 15:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6709669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelestiaTrollworth/pseuds/CelestiaTrollworth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starship captains are nearly a species unto themselves. Unfortunately for those around them, they're not as hard to damage as they'd like to think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hopes and Dreams (which aren't a good thing)

**Author's Note:**

> Of course I don't own Kirk, Spock, Uhura and Company, but I'm grateful to those who let us play with them. Also, thanks to all of those at rihan.org, the Vulcan Language Institute and elsewhere around the Web for generous language help.
> 
> I just realized, with some horror, that I have had stories with Lhairre and Lia in them for forty-three years now. Oof.

“These public service announcements were a good idea,” Lia said. “The actors are from the Vulcan community in Carbon Creek. I'm getting them cued up for the newcomers.”

The vid for relocated refugees covered things Kirk would have taken for granted and a few he wouldn't have thought of: an angry human is almost certainly going to calm down without trying to kill you, a happy human may touch you without meaning to give offense, humans seldom know what you're thinking unless you use spoken words and gestures to convey your meaning. “I would have assumed they'd know we have to...there's that word, isn't it?”

“Assume makes an ass of you and me,” Uhura agreed. “The standard Academy vids weren't this informative. Is there a Standard version for Terrans interacting?”

“Yes. You might like that one. That young k'turr man lives next door to Solkar in Carbon Creek and the woman in traditional dress works with him. They're professional athletes and used to doing promotional material, plus they thought a lot of Terrans might pay more attention that way. So many Terran towns took in refugees, a lot don't want to live on New Vulcan, and some of the elderly can't yet. It wasn't as bad for us because we'd lived there many years ago, and those lucky enough to be sent to Carbon Creek had a whole community ready for and used to them, but some in cities that weren't used to us had a very difficult adjustment, and for many it won't be temporary.”

“I'm not sure how I'd take to living on a planet now,” Kirk admitted. “I'm about ready to get one of those tattoos myself, because it felt really odd to be back on the ground at the Academy for that few months. I can't imagine dealing with a sudden shift to a completely different planet in a matter of a few days, starting over with nothing but the clothes on your back.”

He didn't have to ask what Spock thought; he was almost radiating gratitude because both Kirk and Uhura wanted to understand him. “Even though given...what happened to Mother...he was unable to think so, Father was in a better situation than most. They had a home at the Embassy. His siblings, parents and grandparents survived, he speaks fluent Standard, and he had access to clothing that would fit, heat and meditation space on the way to Earth. Many refugees were bereaved of everyone they knew, had nothing and were aboard freighters with no passenger facilities.” His face barely flinched, but his eyes recalled the time. “Having the surviving Council of Elders meditating in my quarters for a week should have been an honor.”

“An honor similar to T'Pau's marital relations advice,” Lia snorted. “And as useful.”

“Most were Kohlinahri and believed they were devoid of emotion. They were not. They wished Sarek and I were. We were not, despite our best efforts.”

Uhura growled. “After a couple of days with no sleep, food or water and forty-seven distraught people crowded into one room with a fire and incense, I don't think anybody would be capable of maintaining. That's why I all but force-fed both of you and told you to get into my bedroom, lock the door and not come out until you were damn good and ready to deal with it all.”

“In that case, it's a wonder they're out here now,” Lia said. “I might not be.”

“We both thought about not,” Spock admitted. “But we were there together.”

“True. We're all damaged to some extent. Ah, the night after we came home for good, the nightmares. Lhairre and I had each other and all of the kids. I don't want to imagine it alone. When I first heard the phrase 'hopes and dreams' I thought it was like 'ups and downs' or 'in sickness and in health', Terran opposites. Dreams were not a good thing for Vulcans even before. Most of us make witnessing Terran nightmares look tame.” Spock was looking away, but Lia nudged him. “No. Say it out loud and do _not_ be ashamed. We don't have time to be delicate any more.”

“The first time we slept in the same bed, long before va'Pak, and he dreamed, I thought he was having a seizure,” Uhura admitted. “He hadn't warned me. I touched him and it stopped.”

“Your touch is the anchor to reality. It's why even fully clothed Kohlinari so often lie on the same bed in stressful times even though they have no intention of having sex or any emotional contact. Dreams are startlingly real to us, so much so that it can be hard to tell when you're awake.”

“ _That's_ why there was always someone there after I died,” Kirk said. “I wasn't fully aware, but I know you never left me alone, even if Bones was around.”

Spock spoke to the floor. “You were so very ill. I couldn't have left the room unless Sarek or one of the grandfathers was with you. I was not certain how it works for humans, but when a Vulcan says he wants to be alone is when he most should not be.”

The admiral rescued him. “Just so. We stay with a very sick patient to prop up his vitals even if it's gross.” She muffled a chuckle. “True bond, when I've thrown up on Lhairre's shoes and he'll still lie beside me to keep me alive when I'm hallucinating and unable to breathe properly.”

Kirk found it necessary to fold a napkin into interesting shapes. “When you get into a knock-down drag-out and still speak to each other.” He really had gotten out of hand a few days back during that colony intervention that reminded him of his own past.

Spock wouldn't let him go back there. “And neither apologizes because it is unnecessary.”

Uhura cleared her throat. “But you should think it at him anyway. In case.”

“Here's another captain thing--” the admiral made a mildly dismayed expression and shifted her tunic so the baby could climb into it. “Childbirth aside, one of the most difficult moments for a captain is getting out of the chair because you're unfit to fight the ship. Spock, when you faced that, you did what I have, stayed when you weren't able to think. Uhura, has it happened to you yet?”

“Not so far, although I did leave the conn to Sulu when it was...necessary.”

“So my brother said, and that was a good thing. Watching Spock and Jim take off on that _Narada_ run was more than he needed alone.”

Spock's horror showed. “I thought him to be with the elders. He was there when we left?”

Uhura regarded him with soft eyes. “On his knees in the transporter control room. I joined him half a second after you left. If you're kneeling behind the console, nobody walking by can see you even if you're bawling your eyes out, in my case, or shaking, the way he was.”

“Roughly the same thing,” Lia said. “Desert tribe, remember? Tears are a rare gift even for those who express emotions. Most of us who try to suppress eventually overload and find ourselves on the floor trying to reassemble our shields. If I may ask, what did you do?”

“I...” she looked briefly uncomfortable, but soldiered on. “Didn't know, so I asked how to help. He put a hand on my arm and said 'Be there.' We both got our acts together.”

“Very good. You got it right: if you aren't sure, ask, and it's better to let us touch you first. We may pretend we're fine, but stay around when you know we aren't. Here's your owner's manual: if we can't stand up we're ill or overwhelmed, if we're shaking we've lost control of body heat from fever, pain or stress, and grief or rage tend to express as screaming. It's rare to see a Romulan in danger from their emotions—internal danger, not getting shot or slugged--because they release as a matter of course. It was liberating to learn to use foul words and not have to meditate to avoid describing the sexual habits of a malfunctioning power stabilizer.”

“And now that you're back?”

“Ask my big-shot starship captain daughter.” She pointed to a bit of Vulcan on the wall, with Romulan lettering beside it: _We are all aware of the change in language that will be necessary at some point. We have not yet reached that point. For the foreseeable future, Romulan, Vulcan or any combination is acceptable aboard. Swearing should be limited to those occasions where it is truly necessary, not merely because the toast is insufficiently beige, but “truly necessary” will be liberally interpreted. Any respectful noise made toward an officer will be construed as_ _ **osu**_ _or_ _ **s'haile**_ _, regardless of sounding like_ _ **rekkhai**_ _.No offense must be taken where none is intended, and if any of you ninety-day wonders get your dander up over this, I reserve the Captain's Romulan Right of Cracking You Over The Head With An Impact Wrench.--_ Carbon Creek _Herself_

Kirk grinned. “She knows the old Terran naval custom.  _Enterprise_ Himself approves.”

“That girl would be on the bridge in a Lord Nelson uniform if she could get away with it. We had some instant lieutenants trying for a Council of Elders-style anal-retentive crackdown. Some of us have spent over twenty-five years training ourselves to think, shout, swear and order in Romulan only, and she grew into rank as a Romulan commander. Any stress will get us mixed up again. Speaking of stress and things that cause swearing...” but there was no concealing the radiant look she saved for Lhairre when he came back, or the way she reached for his outstretched fingers and pulled them against her heart, leaning into his chest.

“She doesn't even talk in her sleep in Vulcan,” her husband assured them. “I see Ta'an thought she was starving again. Want me to take her?”

“No, _e'lev_ , I'll go top off her tank, clean the exhaust and open negotiations on her nap so we can help if anything does happen with the rescue. These three need a break and I'd guess a stiff drink. You can play bartender and tell them awful stories about me. We were talking about how a captain has to be dragged out of the chair with a tractor beam even when she knows she's too sick for the job. What did you find out about the hyperwarp problem?”

“It was a simple short, of all things. Oh. I'm not supposed to tell you that Courig sliced his arm on the cracked casing. Ah, Kir Haran, great shipyards with cheap insulation. He was going to patch it himself, but I dragged him down to Saeihr so he wouldn't make a mess of it with duct tape.”

She arched an eyebrow at him as she left. “Like any captains you know?”

“You're hopeless, but Rai's the past master of crawling out of a cloud of shrapnel and gas saying 'I'm _fabulous_ , hand me a rag and where's the tape?' Even I'm not that bad, and I'm an engineer.”

Kirk had a vision of the big Vulcan captain doing exactly that. “Prime told me his Jim was terrible, as if he wasn't prone to it himself. I've seen the reports.”

Lhairre snorted. “Not that _you_ admitted being hurt after being mauled by Spock.” His comm beeped. “Rai can't wait to see us. At dinner you'll get a fresh perspective and a lot more material.” He started to tick off invisible events on his fingers, and Kirk knew which must have been the worst by the little flinches and faint grimaces at some memories. “That frame with her Romulan fleet medals, did you see all the green stars? Those were only the combat wounds during the Klingon uprising. She didn't even get one for destroying her knee falling out of the chair when we hit a gravity wave. The coolant was the worst. She was out of her head for three days and it was two more weeks before the repair base medic could even guess she _might_ be out of danger.”

“Warp drive. Wonderful when it doesn't kill you,” Kirk sighed.

“You know. She didn't get the radiation, just the coolant burns. We had to limp to the nearest base, first on impulse, then Rai and I got it all the way up to Warp 2 so we could get her to a medic. Captured ship, skeleton crew, we had no sickbay we could use--who thought we'd need one? I was half crazy, but the engines needed tending, we needed weapons and there had to be an officer in the chair to watch the Klingons who had been stalking us since the first battle. At the time, that meant me with the engines, my brother trying to regain deflectors and Rai with the conn. What else could we do?”

Kirk knew all too well. “You didn't have the children—?”

“T'Maekh was staying with my mother on the ship where we were origially stationed. The other little voice didn't come in well until her mother was getting better, and that was our Saeihr. Maybe that's why she's a doctor. Lia might not have fought so hard if there hadn't been a little one to think of. And of course, the minute the medic said they were both likely to live, she dragged herself out of Rai's bed to see what I was doing with her engines.”

“Oh. Of course his, she said it was right there.”

“Best spot aboard where we could all be with her and still do what had to be done. I don't know whether she or the ship was worse, but both survived.” He must have run into a better memory. “And speaking of messes on ships, no matter how good some alien fruit is, it's a really bad idea to eat a lot of it. We raided the back of QoNoS to retrieve captured parts and found fist-size wild grapes that are delicious. I can't resist—no, I _didn't_ resist them, and I was on night watch. I have no idea how often Klingons relieve themselves, but they certainly put their toilets far enough from the bridge and it explains their stinky carpeting. She issued an order: 'only eat ONE of those purple things at a time unless you need that effect or are with Base Command.' Even _they're_ not _that_ full of it.”

Kirk didn't need to ask what Spock was remembering. His Vulcan didn't smirk externally. “Dr. McCoy was unhappy that I failed to prevent your investigation of the drink menu in that dubious bar.”

“At least that was only a bout of explosive sneezing every time I took a sip. It cut short my socializing with that Betazed girl I'd have liked to know a lot better.”

“Biblically, perhaps?”

“I seem to remember someone who thought it was logical to stand watch with a nasty flu,” Uhura said with saintly innocence. “Which logically infected the entire shift on the bridge and so many in the botany lab that we ran out of antivirals.”

“Some of the outposts are nothing but virus exchanges and places to get rotten food and bad booze. My girls accidentally got Admiral Archer horribly drunk.”

“Accidentally?” Kirk had met the admiral.

“On the Romulan side, one of the first things a commander orders for a new ship is the still. I know commanders who haven't stood a sober duty shift in decades. But...one afternoon years ago we were briefly being a Vulcan crew and ferrying the admiral to a conference. The girls were small, so they had juice with lunch.”

“Oh,” Uhura made a woeful face. “Kaya juice?”

“Yes. The girls obligingly poured him some and he liked it. A lot.”

“And little kids are drinking it, so surely...”

“It took an entire pot of coffee to get him vertical enough to deal with his speech that night and he was still fully loaded. He did mention it was the only conference he ever actually enjoyed.” Lhairre set out glasses and filled them from the crystal decanter of blue ale. “I mean, who'd have thought to explain to him that it's mostly alcohol? All we think about is that it's not sugary. The Vulcan side offers no social occasions on which one is _supposed_ to get hammered. On the Romulan side, every holiday is an excuse for blue ale, honeymint brandy, hot fudge, sinus blasters, liver scrub, Kiri shuttle bombs... every personal milestone means no work the next morning even if you're alive and out of jail. The song about my seventy-fifth birthday is still popular in the military. Tal Shiar encourages parties because the drunker people are the more they say. At the same time, _they_ drink like fish and tell on one another, which is very handy when you need good blackmail material. At least, unlike the Klingons, they hardly ever leave copious body fluids on the bridge.”

Kirk stared in disbelief. “Back up a minute. You're a folk song?”

Lhairre cleared his throat. “I'm not one of the singers in the family, mind.--'When Lhairre the half-breed _Yyaio_ came up, we didn't know what to think; those losers die so willingly and they don't know how to drink. But his captain had a thing for him, and the boy was seventy-five, and so she threw a party, and most of us survived. Look out for that ale of Arenniye's, it's hellfire through and through...' It has a lot of verses. That's the only clean one and that's all that's clean of the chorus.”

“Well, there's one thing I've avoided,” Kirk tried to maintain aplomb.

Spock folded his arms and shook his head. “No, you haven't. And I'm not singing it.”

“Oh,” Uhura said. “'Captain Jimmy and the Cupcake War.'”

“According to Prime, and taking into account his Kirk's eventual rank, at last count there were seventy-nine verses that gave 'tapping the admiral' a meaning entirely different from British sailors' supposed robbing of the rum-filled preservation cask holding Lord Nelson's body.”

Lhairre did indeed know how to extricate a captain from trouble. “One huge duty of an XO is to realize when the captain is out of hand. It's that way on that side of the Zone, it's that way with the Feds and there are even times the Vulcan Navy has cause. We developed a drink-shuffling maneuver that not only made us look invincible, but also allowed us to stow the really good stock from Tal Shiar bigwigs in boot flasks for later.”

Kirk savored the ale. “Dual-purpose skulduggery. I like it.”

“Oh, nobody dug skulls better than we did if I do say so myself. That's homemade, by the way. I think the kids have the recipe right. Spock, you have a decided advantage with this captain of yours. Lia is as tall as me and about as strong as I am, but she is a _much_ meaner drunk.”

“The Tellarites would testify to that after last night,” Spock muttered. “They deserved it.”

“Not unlike the time you two found yourselves on that planet a month or so ago, having left Nyota with the conn while you were being diplomatic...if we expand the definition of diplomacy to include a pitched gun battle in the middle of a street followed by a police chase...”

“ _Rha_ '.” Spock savored his ale and considered the glass. Kirk wondered whether he'd be offended to be told he was developing Sarek's diplomatic smirk. “You forgot the exploding building.”

Lhairre bailed him out with Vulcan aplomb. “They should have paid more attention to their fuel lines. Poor engineering. The version I got was that owing to his infuriated and combative state, you had to neck-pinch him, throw him over your shoulder and extricate yourselves via transporter.”

Developing, heck, that smirk was full-grown. “That is a fair assessment of the situation, yes.”

“Which he will not admit to having enjoyed,” Uhura added. “But he did.”

“Consider my dilemma, then. We were at a Tal Shiar party at the Green Star one evening. It's still there, a place you'd be reluctant to walk into if you weren't a veteran with the advertised medal. Actually, it's a place most people would be reluctant to walk into even so, but that was where the immediate superiors thought we should meet for an off the record interview, which means drinking party. Our ability to stall by shuffling drinks had diminished and her need to get lit had increased due to a series of horrible events just before. When she gets pickled, her inner Vulcan comes out.” He noticed Kirk's puzzlement. “You know she is, and I know she is, but our commander didn't and she was striking for admiral. Old Misery with the Third Fleet that holds back of beyond, the one she stuck with all the boltbucket ships as soon as she had the power, was blowing off a bunch of opinions about transporter technology, which he knew nothing about, and she decided to straighten him out because that was her specialty for years. If there's one thing S'chn T'gai do really well, it's tie people in knots with words.”  
“When they're not doing it with their fists,” Kirk grumbled, rubbing the no longer quite so prominent lump on his upper shoulder.

“It wasn't a fist. It was a pinch.” Spock offered to demonstrate. Kirk got his unguarded ribs and enjoyed watching his smugness disappear in a valiant effort not to cave.

“Don't tick me off when you're sitting there ticklish.--So, old admiral not being very bright and future admiral being entirely too much so, and...?”

“About what you'd think. He got mad because she was right and called her a coward and a liar. That alone by Romulan law...all right, even by modern Vulcan law as well...is worth a duel to the death. Then he swung at her in front of their equally drunk bosses, who as it turned out were the promotion board to be. Moreover, he swung at her and _missed_.”

They might have had three different words for it, but all amounted to the same concept. Uhura spoke first. “What on earth did you _do_?”

“There were candles and spilled ale, which does have a lot of alcohol in it. A good nudge set it on fire, which I thought might distract them. One of the officers grabbed the tablecloth and threw it toward the door, not so lucky for Misery because he got wound up in it. He couldn't get burned because of his uniform, but his lizard brain never caught on to that when he was in a flaming wad of cloth. He threw it at her and bolted out of the bar. Burning booze and candle wax dripped onto her pants. Ale smokes because of all the sugar, so she burst out into the street in a cloud of black smoke and flames. He and the passers-by thought he was dealing with a _haran_. Worse, I was dealing with a large, angry starship captain who was actually on fire and didn't care.”

“Now this is different,” Spock agreed. “Honor is the salient point, even more crucial on the Romulan side; how could it be maintained while still extricating your captain?”

“Exactly. If we wanted to continue the big multi-year operation, I couldn't keep her from going after him until she drew blood, but if she killed him, he had powerful friends who would have stopped at nothing to compromise us. She got one good punch in that made a green mess of his nose, grabbed his hair to yank his head back and she'd have either done Misery in or set downtown on fire if she hadn't tripped over the curb. He got loose when she fell and ran off without torching anything more frightening than a trash can. I sat on her back, hit the emergency out button and yelled 'Rai! Bring fire control!' We did a lot of explaining when we got back...” he thumbed through his padd, “and yes, Rai took pictures.”

“You're not in any after the first,” Uhura observed.

“I ran down the hallway until he made sure she was extinguished and cooled off. As it turns out, not only is she very forgiving, but also, a transporter followed by a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher to the face will calm down an angry Vulcan enough for Rai to settle her down.”

“Gotta make a note of that,” Kirk said. “In fact, I can't wait to try it.”

Spock's eyes cut sidewise at him. “Keep it up and you may soon have occasion.”

“Thanks to her display of utter insanity and fearlessness, and probably more thanks to what she'd just done with the large Klingon incursion, she got the promotion. On the morning after _that_ party Misery, for some reason, greeted the sun naked in a parachute harness on a banner frame over the main street. Honor was satisfied, sitch didn't deteriorate and we got where we are now. Our Federation marriage vows covered it as captain and commander as well as husband and wife: for better or worse, in sickness and in case of health, for richer and for poorer, as long as she doesn't get me killed.” Lhairre toasted them with his ale. “And I wouldn't have it any other way...and neither would you.”


End file.
